Tetsuya Nomura no Longer Directing Final Fantasy XV

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APZonerunner

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#21
Fair point but I doubt we would see Nomura leaving Square Enix anytime soon, from my perspective.
Yeah, I understand that thinking. None of these people are insignificant in the end, though. Tanaka was one of the original seven people who worked on FF1, for instance. Matsuno was at Square because they liked his work so much they purchased the company he worked for in order to bring him and his franchises into their stable. Nobody's bulletproof in that way, and nobody stays anywhere forever.
 

KOKAYI5

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#23
Why was this too much for him if that's the case? He did a lot with KH games too and this game is a more snazy bigger KH game. I hope he's not forced out the door due to this. He doesn't make Square but I do like his ideas and stories and drawing. Would yall be sad to see him go? Or are yall tired of him?

He said way back that it was gonna be the last FF he directed. So maybe that's what this is. He's done with FFs and going back to only KH stuff.
 

APZonerunner

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#26
Wow, what a surprise!

Is Yoko still the composer? Someone made a post that an Orchestra was working on the music, but there's so much going on I can't remember where?
Yeah, it's still her. One has to imagine with how long the game's in development the score has been largely complete for a long time and she's just adding tracks here and there for new scenes and scenarios. VGO are just who she worked with to orchestrate the trailer music, it seems. (And maybe the full OST? Time will tell.)
 
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#27
Why was this too much for him if that's the case? He did a lot with KH games too and this game is a more snazy bigger KH game. I hope he's not forced out the door due to this. He doesn't make Square but I do like his ideas and stories and drawing. Would yall be sad to see him go? Or are yall tired of him?
The great Nomura-san is not immune to the difficulties of HD development either.

The pressure to deliver an excellent AAA game is at a all time high now. It's not getting easier.
 
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#29
I'd imagine this being the result of Square meddling with his original vision. Who knows if the Square execs were okay with a mainline FF being too dark and/or violent. I believe Square would like to keep FF a 'T for Teen' rating (for more sales), & maybe Nomura's ideas would cause a 'Mature' rating. Don't think there was anything excessively violent in the new trailer.

I can definitely see Nomura, after having his project being constantly changed, just throw his hands up in the air & tell Square "Go F*ck Yourselves", & go to complete KHIII.

Or maybe FFVX's pretty much done, & he's just moving on to a different project. This scenario, however, sounds less likely. There would have been no need to completely strip the director title from him, were this to be the case.

In any event, I truly hope Nomura stays. I really love his style, however overused it might be. Nomura & Square Enix have become somewhat synonymous with one another. Would definitely feel weird seeing him work elsewhere. (Unless he opens his own studio, hiring all the other recently departured Square employees. That appears to be the 'it' thing going on in this industry.
 
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#32
@LeonBlade Then why go to such an extreme as completely removing his name as director? He created this game's vision from the ground up. Why not just have his name remain as director/creator/character designer/Grand Poobah? And for that matter, why was Matsuda the one to announce this decision? I know Nomura is a notorious introvert, but you'd figure the guy who started it all would like to voice his decision on his own... Just doesn't smell kosher.
 

Kaii

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#33
I can definitely see Nomura, after having his project being constantly changed, just throw his hands up in the air & tell Square "Go F*ck Yourselves", & go to complete KHIII.
...
In any event, I truly hope Nomura stays.
Mmm, you're making it seem like it was Nomura's choice, when the press release implies that it was either an executive decision or a decision reached by multiple people. While I do think that one of the things that sets Final Fantasy apart from other game franchises is the time they spend doing things right, I do recognize that AAA games don't have the luxury of time anymore. Dev cycles are getting shorter across the board and if SE doesn't keep up, then it's gonna have problems. Creative vision be damned.
 
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Takoyaki

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#34
@LeonBlade Then why go to such an extreme as completely removing his name as director? He created this game's vision from the ground up. Why not just have his name remain as director/creator/character designer/Grand Poobah? And for that matter, why was Matsuda the one to announce this decision? I know Nomura is a notorious introvert, but you'd figure the guy who started it all would like to voice his decision on his own... Just doesn't smell kosher.
He has other projects like KH to work on though.

It's seems pretty standard this would come from an executive.

I don't know, I just think this is being made into something that's not. Tabata has probably been Co-Director for a while now. Not like anything he's going to transform it into something completely different in what is its final year. Even if the change was during the past year.
 
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#35
You guys honestly think you're going to learn the real reason behind his departure?

Final Fantasy XV is a product Square Enix is trying to sell. It's not smart to say things that could put it under a negative light.

The way Matsuda sells it makes it sound like everything is alright.

I don't really buy it.
 

Takoyaki

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#36
Sure, but putting it in a negative light on the get go is just as silly (yes, staff shuffling counts) You're attaching an unneeded negative stigma to the game.
 
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#37
Sure, but putting it in a negative light on the get go is just as silly (yes, staff shuffling counts) You're attaching an unneeded negative stigma to the game.
Game has always been in a negative light really thanks to all the secrecy and no shows at conventions.

But Nomura leaving the project I think is a pretty big deal. Would really explain why we didn't hear much of anything since E313.
 

Takoyaki

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#38
Game has always been in a negative light really thanks to all the secrecy and no shows at conventions.

But Nomura leaving the project I think is a pretty big deal. Would really explain why we didn't hear much of anything since E313.
I guess, but if people are going to claim that SE meddled with his vision and add such speculation, I feel that isn't warranted. No matter what, Tabata originated as a co-director.

I do think it's big and possibly take his leave, but he was the longest serving director of the game. Not like they scrapped it entirely in months and brought up a demo.
 

KOKAYI5

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#39
The great Nomura-san is not immune to the difficulties of HD development either.

The pressure to deliver an excellent AAA game is at a all time high now. It's not getting easier.
I don't put Nomura on a pedestal. I like his work but I know he can make mistakes. But still not so quick to dump blame squarely on one man who is a part of a team. I'm not sure if that "the great" part of your sentence is to mock me for liking his work or to mock him.

EDIT:
It's possible there's more to this that's not being said to help sales. But at the end of the day if we're never gonna know the answer as you've said, what's the point of speculating negatively? Why not question it and wait for proof if any? Why speculate and talk of it as if conspiracy people are ignoring. Sometimes shady stuff IS going on. In business this is even more true, but not always. Maybe Nomura's just tired and wants to retire after KH3?
 
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#40
All the more reason to sit out until someone down the line comes out with a postmortem on the game's development.

I for one am not convinced that Nomura stepped down as director on entirely amiable terms. We lack the concrete evidence to support this, but I think we can infer from this whole, long episode that it probably has been a royal, unmitigated clusterfuck. Was the sudden radio silence after last year's E3 until now down squarely to a PR department wary of information schedules, or was the development simply still too chaotic along with troubled simultaneous engine development that any earlier plans had to be quickly amended or dropped? We can only guess, but I'm putting money on the idea that the Final Fantasy XV we are seeing today is a far cry from the vision that Nomura originally put forward for Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

I wish all the best for the man. I'm sure the whole episode has been an enormous strain on him, and providing he hasn't now come to blows with his bosses, or is upset with the vision of the game as it currently stands, he deserves that emotional congratulatory moment when FFXV finally releases, like when YoshiP teared up when his baby (with all the pressure and weight behind it) finally went online. The development culture and organisation at Square-Enix cannot be a very enviable thing to manoeuvre and manage, especially when you're one or a few guys, but I hope this doesn't bode a future departure of Nomura from the company.

All the best for Tabata. I've no idea if these are final days ahead for him, or whether it's still going to enter into more long, choppy waters.
 
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